And goal weights are one of the reasons I could never join WW (apologies to all who find this a wonderful program)

When my 70 year old mom joined WW they told her that for her height her goal weight needed to be 142. My mom hasnt been that small since she was in her early 20's. At the time she was around 180, but very very active.

She got down to 150, was riding her bike as much as 100 miles a week, walking daily, and she just kind of got stuck. She was REALLY happy where she was and went to WW and asked for help in transitioning to maintenance and they wouldnt help her because she hadnt hit goal. And of course then she couldnt be a lifetime member and on her budget it was killing her for a program that wouldnt support her. - She did in fact try to transition to maintenance on her own and continue with ww meetings but got tired of being labeled as not succeeding when week after week she stayed at 150 +/- 2 lbs.

She ended up leaving WW because they wouldnt help and regained all of the weight. Its not (all) ww fault, but for a program that is to be about support to tell her her achievement of losing 30 lbs wasnt good enough if she couldnt lose the last 8 was very demoralizing to her. I think really if they had said, ok, goal is 150, this is how you start to add points to maintain, she would have been much better off.

My point wasnt really to bash ww, it was more along the dangers of getting attached to a number.

When you join Weight Watchers, you’re given a goal weight based on normal BMI.

When I joined Weight Watchers a few years back, at my heaviest weight of 233, they very much discouraged me to set a goal weight. They had my 'goal' as a 10% loss. I was very encouraged by that thinking.

Just based on this discussion, I find the study to be very noninformative. People lost weight, then gained it back. The study tells us nothing about maintenance - did the people in the study change how they ate forever? Because if they didn't, of course they would gain the weight back.

I could have been one of the people in the study for 20 years. I dieted, lost weight, stopped dieting, gained the weight back. Dieted, lost weight, stopped dieting, gained the weight back back. This time, I started a lifetime "diet", lost weight, never stopped "dieting" and never gained the weight back.

This quote is very telling "They can diet; they can lose weight, they can feel that this time they really are in control. Yet vexingly, their weight inevitably drifts back up to where it started." Did they interview the people and ask how they were attempting to keep the weight off?

The only successful maintainers I know, "diet" every day for the rest of their lives. They make mindful choices and most exercise regularly.

The author should had tied this chapter back to some of the other topics (like around the increased hunger of the formerly obese) in order to make a more compelling case.

I just heard this author interviewed on a Science Friday podcast. VERY interesting, but I am a little late to the discussion and plan to get the book this week.

As for goal weights, honestly, I just picked what I thought I could maintain with some effort. I am at the weight right now that I maintain easily. It is hard for me to get over 154 and it is hard to get under it. Maybe this should be my goal.

Sorry that I am so embarrassingly late in replying to this thread but oh well.

I read the book and what annoyed me was how the author consistently glossed over the weight regain part. All that she mentioned was that suddenly all the weight was back and they just regained and so on (can't remember the exact wording) and she just left it at that. No word on how (or even IF) people tried to maintain their new weight, just stating that "oh well now the weight is back on again" because leaving it like that served her purpose. Sure, biology is incredibly important but so is behaviour and I refuse to believe that we are powerless automatons, completely enslaved by our biology. It's blatantly clear that Kolata did not want to go into maintenance, and how people actually do it, because that wouldn't make her glum conviction, about how it's impossible to keep weight off, as dead certain as she made it out to be.

I've also been reluctant to pick a goal weight. At the same time, the idea of set points really seems true for me. For much of my 20's, I weighed 150, give or take a few pounds. I thought I wanted to lose weight in a vague sort of way, but I was fit, and it was never that much of a priority. 150 suited me. But I went abroad for a long stretch in my late 20's and lost a bunch of weight--not on purpose, more circumstantial. And being in the 130s made me realize that was not where my body wanted to be, even if it's a very healthy weight for my height.

Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I hadn't lost that weight. (And really, I wasn't trying. I was living in India, it was really hot for a lot of the time, I got sick, I fell in love--you know, the stuff that makes you lose weight sometimes.) Because when I got back, eventually, over 5 or 6 years, I gained it back and then some, all the way up to 180. (And this was after being steady at 150-ish for years.)

In my whole adult life, I've never maintained at a weight less than 150, or, really, more than 180. I went back down from 180 to 150 once, about 7 years ago, gained it back, discovered I had thyroid issues, stayed set at 180 for 3 years or so, and only this spring, when I realized I was going to be closer to 190 than 180 if I didn't watch out, did I decide I had to do something.

At this point, there's no way I'd set a goal lower than 150. That seems a recipe for failure. I'd be happy with another 10 pounds off. (And I feel and look good now, at 170, though I don't really want to stop here.) Because I've always exercised, I've never had any weight-related health issues, and my numbers have all been fine, even at 180.

I think the lesson for me is that I probably can't, realistically, get any lower than 150, but I also know that my body is comfortable at 180, even if I'm not. So the challenge is keeping myself in the lower end of the zone rather than the upper end. But I do have to say that knowing what my realistic lower end weight is helps in terms of thinking about reasonable weight loss now.

I think back on times when I've been thinner & think that the problem was having a goal weight, once I was no longer overweight. All the time spent calculating percentages and pounds. Had I just maintained healthful eating & exercise habits it would have been ok. But instead I was never satisfied with the number on the scale , even though I was fine. I never enjoyed the accomplishment of a healthy lifestyle. My body became a battleground for self doubt and underachievement. Never good enough. My goal now is to no longer be overweight. After that, another 20 pounds would bring me back to my 'fighting weight'. But that could take as long as it like- if it does at all, I just want normal labs, enjoyment in training, and a clean diet. The numbers can fall as they may.

I set a goal weight of 150 for myself. That's the top of the 'normal' range in BMI. But I am choosing a plan that isn't about food or calorie restriction - it's about learning to eat normally.

I know I'm not at the weight I should be because if I eat vaguely normally I start losing weight. Should I be at 150? I don't know. I know I would be thrilled to be a size 12 (US) and a size 10 in some dresses, but that's no skinny-mini. But I will NOT diet to get there. I know I can maintain at a size 14 (US) without extremes as long as I'm doing *some* exercise. I do know that I will have to forever be mindful about how I eat (though hopefully thru the system I'm using partly this will be ingrained by habit) and of course I will have to continue to exercise. OF COURSE I have to. I want to be fit and I don't believe that the human body is meant to be sedentary.

I have changed my goal weight twice since January 2014. Initially I wanted to get my eating under control and I figured that in the past I could maintain 130 pounds and still eat all the foods I enjoyed , but then I had an epiphany! I cleaned up my act got rid of all non-nutritious concoctions from a lab( instead of food from nature) and I beat the sugar witch out of my life.
I could now begin exercising without hurting my knees and ankles and viola! the weight came tumbling tumbling off. For me exercise and getting rid of fake foods was the key.
If a food has ingredients that you can't find in a normal pantry, then I do not eat it. So no more cans of coconut milk, tomatoe soup from a can, vegan cheeses, vegan sausages. And no more booze or bread or pasta or salted nuts. But I eat so many healthy vegetables I do not go hungry.
THe only concoction I do eat is my morning protein shake made with unsweetened almond milk. It has 100% of so many vitamins that I know I am not destroying my health just to be thin...